“Build a better mousetrap, and the world will beat a path to your door” is a phrase that has inspired generations of innovators and entrepreneurs. Unfortunately, they often find that a better mousetrap is not enough. You also need to find a customer who wants to buy a mousetrap at a price at which you can profit. That, essentially, is the idea behind the lean startup, a concept originally developed by Steve Blank and then popularized by Eric Ries in his bestselling book. Blank’s key insight is that you can’t run a new business the same way you would manage an existing enterprise.

Loneliness doesn't always stem from being alone. For architect Grace Kim, loneliness is a function of how socially connected we feel to the people around us -- and it's often the result of the homes we live in. She shares an age-old antidote to isolation: cohousing, a way of living where people choose to share space with their neighbors, get to know them, and look after them. Rethink your home and how you live in it with this eye-opening talk.

Amazon has presented a few weird ideas for delivery and its latest, a skyscraper beehive filled with drones, is no exception. The patent application is another look at how Amazon plans to integrate drones and improve ‘last mile’ delivery.

Most of Amazon’s warehouses are located on the outskirts of cities and it would take too long for a drone to reach the city center before needing a refuel. The beehive removes this problem by placing the drones in the city, reducing the overall distance to customers.

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To all of the writers of articles out there labeling millennials as lazy, entitled navel-gazers, here’s a rebuttal: They’re the most proactive age group of all when it comes to saving money.

In fact, a larger share of millennials contribute to their 401(k) plans than any other generation, according to an annual report by Bank of America Merrill Lynch released today. Eighty-two percent of eligible millennials who have 401(k) plans are contributing to them, compared to 77 percent of gen Xers and 75 percent of baby boomers.

TORONTO, July 28, 2017 /CNW/ - Canadians are welcoming to people and ideas from around the globe. Welcoming entrepreneurs who have the expertise to turn their ideas into successful companies is one way that Canada's openness can help build a world-class innovation economy. 

The Start-up Visa Program, a pathway to permanent residence for cutting-edge entrepreneurs launching a start-up company in Canada, will become a regular feature of Canada's immigration landscape in 2018.   

The Inova Personalized Health Accelerator (IPHA) is preparing to accept applications from early-stage startups focused on predicting, preventing and treating disease.

Falls Church-based Inova Health System announced plans for the accelerator last December when it also launched Inova Strategic Investments, a venture-capital program. Both projects are housed at the new Inova Center for Personalized Health, a 117-acre campus in Fairfax County.

IPHA was set to open in July, with more announcements expected in August. Plans call for the accelerator to host four companies in the first six months of operation, then 16 in each subsequent 12-months period.

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Starting a new business is a long, hard process, and I can’t blame any founder for looking for shortcuts. I’ve taken a few myself, and I know how much work they can save, as well as how painful some can be in retrospect. When you are trying new things, there are plenty of new problems to go around, so why would you want to re-experience the pain of others?

As a new business advisor and angel investor, I have assembled my own favorite list of shortcuts to avoid, in the hope of saving you from learning these lessons the hard way:

What do you get when you have five cities, six universities, one private corporation, 30 economic development and nonprofit organizations and five government representatives all working together? You get an unprecedented regional collaborative aiming to strengthen Hampton Roads' entrepreneurial ecosystem.

While entrepreneurship is on the rise throughout the U.S. and Hampton Roads has seen significant growth throughout the last several years, it is still lacking in regard to critical mass of companies worth investment dollars.

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In the words of Sumner Redstone, “Success is not built on success. It's built on failure. It's built on frustration. Sometimes it’s built on catastrophe.” Thomas Edison provided a similar account of success with his famous quote, “I didn't fail a thousand times. The light bulb was an invention with a thousand steps.” In a way, the world’s greatest inventions are oftentimes fraught by even greater adversity. The same can be said for Albert Einstein, whose last name has become synonymous with genius.

Image: (AP Photo) Famed physicist Albert Einstein is shown playing the violin, date and location unknown.

While the most commonly used drones are smaller than your average aircraft, they’re not exactly safe for work. After all, they’re meant to soar through the skies, not careen around your coworkers’ cubicles. But if you really want to combat office boredom with some sick piloting skills, the tiny SKEYE Pico Drone is a great choice that probably won’t get you escorted out of the building. 

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In The Best Countries to be a Social Entrepreneur, a 2016 report by Thomas Reuters Foundation, India ranked 14th, ahead of China, Australia and just behind Germany. What was more promising was that India ranked fifth in terms of ease of access to investment funding and eighth for grant funding.

While this goes to show that social entrepreneurship is heading in the right direction and with good momentum, there are still many roadblocks to social innovation.

Exceptional content marketing — and its accompanying, loyal audience — takes time to build. That may be why, when it comes to delivering content that connects and endures, there’s often a knowing look to the horizon:

“Don’t expect magic overnight. Plant the seed and be patient.”

“You have to invest the time and energy in writing. And accept that it takes a long, long time to write something good.”

“There’s the short game of hitting quantity targets. And then there’s the long-game of building quality: engagement, loyalty, love and respect.”

This excerpted counsel is from Joe Coleman and Tara-Nicholle Nelson, just a few of our Review subjects. But similar words are frequently part of the advice that we hear from people who’ve built careers and companies on content that resonates and lasts. And certainly, as your editors of the Review over the last four years, their words ring true to us.

You already have an idea of what the future of work looks like because you are likely already working with bots, artificial intelligence, and machine learning. They are increasingly being incorporated into everything from work stations to websites to cloud platforms.

But while the U.S. is leading the world in robotics investment, “There is clear evidence that points toward robotic automation in many cases being a complement for human labor, rather than a direct substitute,” says David Whitaker, managing economist at the Centre for Economic and Business Research.

Starting a business is an exciting venture. To make it an absolute success, getting all the details right from the very beginning is absolutely crucial. This is where a business plan becomes relevant. A business plan is a formal statement that comprises the goals of a business, reasons why they are attainable and the ways in which these can be accomplished. In short, a business plan is a road-map to success.

MILWAUKEE – With Lake Michigan shimmering in the background as they stood inside the Milwaukee Art Museum, Gov. Scott Walker and Foxconn founder Terry Gou sealed a historic deal for Wisconsin’s economy Thursday.

The reasons why a mid-sized, Midwest state won the competition to land North America’s first liquid crystal display plant – and the 13,000 direct jobs that will come with it – have much less to do with Wisconsin’s offer of financial incentives than with its other tangible and intangible assets.

Since the Foxconn talks began to surface in public talks in June, speculation centered on how Wisconsin might attract the Taiwanese electronics giant if it came down to a bidding war with much larger states such as Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Texas.

State economic development leaders have embraced the need to report program outcomes to demonstrate the impact of their efforts but seek better indicators to measure those outcomes. A new paper from the Center for Regional Economic Competitiveness, Redefining Economic Development Performance Indicators for a Field in Transition, identifies a set of metrics beyond jobs and investment tallies to capture the broader benefits of economic development initiatives.

It’s an old TV and movie trope: the man of wealth and taste, often but not always a supervillain, offers his distinguished guest a bottle of wine, his finest, an ancient vintage from one of the most venerable vineyards. We might follow the motif back at least to Edgar Allan Poe, whose “Cask of Amontillado” puts an especially devious spin on the treasured bottle’s sinister connotations.

Image: Image by Immanuel Giel, via Wikimedia Commons

The Governor’s Innovation Task Force is reaching out across the state to hear from innovators and entrepreneurs and charting a course to make Missouri the prime destination for tech startups and next-generation job creation. Following several workshops throughout the state, the Task Force is preparing policy recommendations on how to accomplish that goal about Missouri becoming a top state for innovation.

When people think of moving to New Zealand, they think of pretty images of lush greenery and snow-capped mountains. And then there's the draw of great work-life balance — and shelter from an apocalypse, no less.

But to build itself into a technology hub, it needs the specialised workforce. 

Wellington, the country's capital with a population just under 500,000, is working on that by offering 100 tech workers a free week-long trip to the city, under its LookSee Wellington programme.

Think back to what what you learned in school 10 (or 20) years ago. How much of it still directly applies to what you're doing now?

Most of the skills required for my present-day job weren't taught in school. They're either tactical skills I learned on my own by surfing the internet or characteristics that I adapted from my parents' own approaches.